Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Oh lá lá les macarons… This month the Daring Bakerstransformed normal people into macaron-obsessed people! If you ask me I mush prefer macaron-obsessed people than normal people! I loooooooooooooove macarons!

Two for the price of one: Oreo and Rice pudding macarons!

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

I usually do my macarons with cooked egg whites, but it’s always fun to try new recipes! I had a little trouble with this recipe provided, well, not the recipe exactly but the temperatures, I had to make some adjustments. My changes are in bold.

Oreo cookie or macaron?

I’ve always wanted to try making Oreo cookies macarons, so this was the perfect opportunity!

OREO MACARONS

Confectioners’ (Icing) sugar: 2 ¼ cups (225 g, 8 oz.)

Almond flour: 2 cups (190 g, 6.7 oz.) I’ve used 140 gr

Granulated sugar: 2 tablespoons (25 g , .88 oz.)

Egg whites: 5 (Have at room temperature)

20 Oreo cookies (without the cream)

OREO FILLING

Filling of 20 Oreo cookies

¼ cup cream cheese

Mix and refrigerate until it’s time to use.

Very dunkable, like the real thing!

But then… since I had some rice pudding left, I had to try my hand on Rice pudding macarons too.

RICE PUDDING MACARONS

Confectioners’ (Icing) sugar: 2 ¼ cups (225 g, 8 oz.)

Almond flour: 2 cups (190 g, 6.7 oz.)

Granulated sugar: 2 tablespoons (25 g , .88 oz.)

Egg whites: 5 (Have at room temperature)

1 tbsp cinnamon

Cinnamon shells

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 200°F (93°C) I’ve started at 320ºF. Combine the confectioners’ sugar and almond flour in a medium bowl (time to add the grinded Oreos or the cinnamon). If grinding your own nuts, combine nuts and a cup of confectioners’ sugar in the bowl of a food processor and grind until nuts are very fine and powdery.

Beat the egg whites in the clean dry bowl of a stand mixer until they hold soft peaks. Slowly add the granulated sugar and beat until the mixture holds stiff peaks.

Sift a third of the almond flour mixture into the meringue and fold gently to combine. If you are planning on adding zest or other flavorings to the batter, now is the time. Sift in the remaining almond flour in two batches. Be gentle! Don’t overfold, but fully incorporate your ingredients.

Spoon the mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a plain half-inch tip (Ateco #806). You can also use a Ziploc bag with a corner cut off. It’s easiest to fill your bag if you stand it up in a tall glass and fold the top down before spooning in the batter.

Bake the macaroon for 5 minutes (Baked mine for about 7 m). Remove the pan from the oven and raise the temperature to 375°F (190°C). Once the oven is up to temperature, put the pans back in the oven and bake for an additional 7 to 8 minutes, or lightly colored. (I’ve lowered my temp to 300º F and let them for 4 minutes more).

Cool on a rack before filling.

RICE PUDDING FILLING

1 cup rice pudding

60 gr (2 oz) white chocolate

Blitz the rice pudding in the food processor until you have a cream. Melt the white chocolate and add to the rice pudding cream.

Bite me!

Once I start making macarons I just want to make more and more, but the thing is once I start eating them, I also just want to eat more and more. Is it just me?

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

I don’t know when Fall is planning to arrive here. They say it’s tomorrow, so I’ll wait and see.

Lemon & honey trio

But the truth is that in the calendar it has already arrived a while ago. So it was time to go back to the artisanal ice cream factory where I do seasonal works to create ice-creams, sorbets and desserts for their website.

Sauteed pineapple cubes with pineapple & vanilla bean sorbet

If you know me you probably have guessed by now that this is the kind of work I do with great sacrifice. Ahahahah, yeah right!...

All the pictures in this post are from Pedro, a photographer that comes to take pictures of my desserts for the website. He says those are the only photo shoots that end up with him eating the models…

Caramelized rice pudding with orange & cinammon sorbet

Of course I can not give you the recipes for the sorbets, but I'll leave you the recipe of these nice lemon & honey cookies that are a part of the lemon & honey trio: tea, sorbet and cookies!

Beat the butter (must be soft) with the powder sugar. Add the yolks, lemon zest and honey and mix well. Lastly add the flour and mix just until the dough is uniform. Wrap in film and take to the fridge for at least 1 hour. Roll the dough, cut into shapes, pierce with a fork, sprinkle with the sugar and bake at 170ºC (325ºF) until golden.

If you live in the Lisbon area and want to try these and other sorbets and ice-creams you can go here! Hope you enjoy them!